Exciting martial arts experience at Long Phuoc Pagoda

Famous for preserving ancient martial arts books and training many generations of excellent martial arts masters, Long Phuoc Pagoda (Phuoc Thuan Commune, Tuy Phuoc District) is also a place that regularly organizes martial arts performances for visitors...

Only about 10 minutes by motorbike from Quy Nhon City, Long Phuoc Pagoda was once the place where martial artist Van Thanh (Nguyen Dong Hai) stayed and studied the book Luc tuong tang vuong pho minh binh thu chieu phap, preserving unique martial arts techniques. From there, he taught his students, trained day and night, and many of them became excellent athletes of the provincial team and are now successful in their martial arts career, such as: Tran Duy Linh (Director of Binh Dinh Traditional Martial Arts Center), Vo Van Tinh (Training coach of Binh Dinh Traditional Martial Arts Team), Nguyen Duc Thang (Chairman of An Nhon Town Martial Arts Association)...

Performances of traditional Binh Dinh martial arts are always highly appreciated by tourists. Photo: LE NA

Located in the middle of the rice fields of Tan Thuan village, Long Phuoc pagoda does not have a grandiose facility like some other pagodas. However, with its long tradition, the pagoda is always one of the places chosen to organize exchanges with domestic and foreign martial arts groups during the International Festival of Vietnamese Traditional Martial Arts. In recent years, the pagoda has invested in building and expanding a number of items such as: Ancestral worship house, training and performance house, stupa, Eighteen Arhat statue garden, accommodation area for tourists... That both meets the needs of tourists visiting the pagoda and watching martial arts performances.

Nguyen Van Thang, the head of Long Phuoc Pagoda Martial Arts Club, shared: “After the Covid-19 pandemic, the club occasionally welcomed groups of visitors to visit and experience. In particular, there were mainly groups of visitors from the northern provinces and groups of students from some schools in the province. In addition to maintaining the club to train athletes to participate in tournaments at all levels, we also established a group of martial artists who were trained in depth to perform for tourists. In the coming time, the club will continue to develop special performances to create a good impression on tourists when they come to visit and experience.”

Tourists visit the newly built stupa and statue garden at Long Phuoc Pagoda. Photo: LE NA

Having brought many groups of tourists to visit and experience Long Phuoc Pagoda, Director of Golden Life Travel Quy Nhon Company Nguyen Thi Xuan Lan said: “Long Phuoc Pagoda is a unique destination in our tours, because when mentioning Binh Dinh, people immediately think of martial arts. All visitors who watch martial arts performances highly appreciate this unique tourism product. For a long time, visitors to Binh Dinh have only been able to watch and listen, if there were more experiential activities such as learning a few martial arts moves at Long Phuoc Pagoda, it would be very interesting”.

The current difficulty is that Long Phuoc Pagoda does not sell tickets to watch martial arts performances, the cost of the performances is completely "at the discretion" of the tour groups. Because of this, travel agencies cannot calculate to include in the tour price, and individual guests do not know how to pay when watching the performance.

LE NA

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